It’s no secret, I love photographing potted flowers! The flowers at the Glacier National Park lodges were fabulous, especially at the park administrative offices, off to the side of the Glacier Park Lodge on the east side of the park. I made a beeline for the flowers as soon as I glimpsed them. Heaven!

This mail room scene was especially interesting to me. I love how you can see a bit of what’s going on inside through the open window.

I love the connections that come out of my photography. I chatted with someone who worked in the mail room, after he saw me taking pictures of the flowers, and he told me where I could find more beautiful arrangements. It was a nice exchange, adding a personal element to my memory of these flowers and this place.

Risk has been much on my mind lately. You can take risk across all areas of your life: Professionally, personally, artistically. Or you can avoid risk, wrap ourselves up in a cocoon of perceived safety, trying to avoid any downside. But with real risk, there is always a downside, to go along with the upside of real reward. With real risk, something of real value must be put on the line. That could be something tangible, such as money, or intangibles like time, reputation, or even ego.

There have been some big issues at my corporate job, as I alluded to last month, and the situation has only grown bigger as some deadlines loom. This has gotten me to thinking about risk… We are dealing with these big issues because we took big risks. We took big risks, seeking big rewards. When you take big risks, they don’t always work out positively. Were there mistakes made along the way? Sure. Hindsight is always 20-20. Is it a failure that things aren’t working out as planned? I don’t think so. We are still much further along the path to achieving our goals than we would have been. The issues are more about responding to new information as it comes in, rather than completely starting over. The only real failure is if you fail to learn from the situation.

I think of risk as flipping a coin. There are two sides to that coin – heads or tails. There is no inherent “good” or “bad” in a getting a head or a tail, it’s just the outcome of the toss. If we took uninformed risks, there would be an equal likelihood of either result with the toss of our coin. You can move the odds in your favor though, by being smart about taking risk. Smart risk taking involves getting as much information as you can, making a decision and committing to a path. It involves keeping your eye on the situation as you move forward and making adjustments as necessary. Smart risk taking is like working to change the results of the coin toss to be heads more often. But it’s still a coin toss, and it still could come up tails. That’s always a possibility with real risk. If there were no possibility of the coin coming up tails, you aren’t risking anything.

And if you aren’t risking anything, you are not growing. Growth, be it in business or in life, requires risk. It requires stepping out of the comfort zone, moving into an unknown space. Even though I talk about taking “smart risks” and getting the information to move forward, you will never, ever have all of the information you want or you need. If you are taking real risks, you will never have a perfect record in the outcome. It’s called the “unknown” for a reason. You have to take the information you have, along with your desire to reach out for that big reward, apply judgment and intuition, and then go.

We often shy away from risk, because we are scared of failure. We don’t want the discomfort or pain of a “bad” result. So we stay stuck. We don’t move forward, we don’t expand, we don’t grow. We don’t reap any new rewards. We might tell ourselves we are waiting until that next piece of information comes in, for that next door to open up, for the perfect moment to step out… but the reality is there will never be a perfect moment, a perfect opportunity, a perfect decision. While we hesitate and wait, we shrink. We may try to avoid risk at all cost to avoid pain, but life has other plans for us. Life hands us things to which we must respond. Things like health issues, loss of a job or loss of loved ones. We are much better equipped to respond to the pain and discomfort of these unforeseen events if we’ve been pushing ourselves out there, taking risks and learning to deal with the downside.

I’m living the results of real risk right now… At my corporate job with the resolution of these issues, sure, but that’s only one tiny example in the course of my life. There are so many places along my personal journey and career I’ve taken risks and they’ve paid off: Taking the assignment in Italy, sharing my art and my heart here online, starting Kat Eye Studio. Those are just a recent few. If I look back at my life journey, I can see every big, important, positive change in my life has come when I’ve taken a risk. A real risk, where something of value is on the line, and I’ve stepped out into the unknown.

Are you avoiding risk somewhere in your life? Are you stuck, trying to create a cocoon that will protect you from discomfort? I encourage you to take a look at those places carefully, take a deep breath, and flip the coin. Heads or tails, you learn and grow. And with growth, you always win.

Occasionally, I come across something that speaks to my creative soul. It reaches right in and touches the depths of who I am as an artist and what I create. I often call my favorite type of work “Real Life Still Life,” where I seek to compose beauty in a photograph from something that already exists. Some scene created by another person intentionally or unintentionally. Something decorated by time and weather.

Here is one such scene found in my exploration of Northwest Portland on Saturday. It speaks to my heart and soul. The soft light, the subtle colors, the varied textures and Oh! The lines! All of those flowing lines. Heaven.

It fills me with joy just looking at it. It’s this kind of image that keeps me going. Keeps me wandering, and searching, and photographing. Every once in a while I get to capture a scene like this. It’s not often, but I’ve come to recognize the signals. There will be a feeling in my heart, as if inspiration is filling me up and if I don’t act on it, my chest is going to burst. There will be a sense of lost time. Nothing else exists for me as I study the scene with my camera. As I leave the scene, I hope there will be something good in my collection of images. If not, I had that wonderful moment of inspiration.

It’s even more rewarding when I get “The One” from a scene like this. You know The One? The One photograph that makes your heart skip a beat. The One where you say, “Yes, that is perfect! That’s exactly what I wanted to capture.” The One that goes directly into your Inspiration File. The One in a thousand photographs. Maybe more.

It’s been a while since I’ve seen The One. Maybe it’s because I’ve been photographing less. Maybe it’s because I’m getting pickier. Whatever the reason, today’s image the The One from Saturday. From May. From 2012… that remains to be seen.

Have you seen The One lately, in your photographs? How do you know when you’ve found it? Feel free to share your images with a link in the comments. I think this will be a fun discussion.

Have you ever looked around and said, “Hmmmm, how did this place get so dirty?” Yeah. That’s my studio. I have all sorts of piles in all sorts of places. They’ve been accumulating for months in some cases and it’s time to dig through and organize them. Shake the dust out of the rugs and clean up the surfaces and generally make things spic and span.

There’s nothing like a clean space to sit and relax in, after all that work is done, don’t you think? I look forward to that feeling later today or tomorrow when this cleaning project is done. This image of a courtyard in Dubrovnik, Croatia gives me a preview of that feeling. I can imagine myself sitting under the umbrella by those potted plants with the scent of sun-drying sheets in the air. Nice.

The Photo-Heart Connection link up for April opens tomorrow! Plan some time to revisit your photos from April, to find your heart connection. I wonder what my heart connection will be this month… will it be an image like this, from Korkula? A city scene from San Francisco? I never know until I go through the process. You and I will both find out tomorrow!

If you haven’t participated before, all are welcome. You can join in once or every month – no expectations or commitments.

To participate, follow these easy steps:

Choose your Photo. Review the photos you worked with in the last month, either new or archive, and find the one with the strongest connection to your heart. Not sure how? Read here.

Write from your heart. Looking at this photo, start to write. See what comes from your heart. There is a message in the image for you, if you open yourself to it.

Ah, here we are, finishing up our study of Dynamic Diagonals. This has been a great exploration! It’s been fun to take a closer look at all of our images, seeing how we naturally use diagonals and the impact.

As I was looking at images from Korkula last weekend, this diagonal jumped out at me. Completely created by my perspective and the angle of the camera, the diagonal strongly leads me through the frame from the bottom left, where the plant is in focus, to the upper right. With the line running almost corner to corner, I break every rule of diagonals and yet I like it.

This exploration, more than almost any other, has made me want to throw conventional composition knowledge out the window. Yes, it’s useful to study what the experts have to say. But it’s important to not blindly spout or follow their knowledge. There is so much more to how we put together an effective image than compositional “rules.” That’s what makes photography an art form. It’s not just point and shoot, no matter what some may say. It takes the engagement of our whole minds and hearts. That’s what I love about it.

So, let’s wrap up out exploration of Dynamic Diagonals today by breaking every rule. Go crazy! You can still link in below and share your findings with the rest of us. Please take the time to visit your fellow participants and see what they have to show you. The more you see, the more you explore, the more you learn.